Herennius Etruscus

227 – 251 · Generation XIV · Co-emperor (AD 251)

Herennius (AD 227 – AD 251). Co-emperor (AD 251). Killed by an arrow at Abritus moments before his father’s last charge. The elder son of Decius and Herennia Etruscilla, he was probably still a boy when the family rose — his coins show as much. Made Caesar in 250, then Augustus and consul the following May, he was sent ahead with a vanguard when Cniva’s Goths poured over the Danube. He shared his father’s surprise victory at Nicopolis ad Istrum and the rout that answered it at Beroe, after which the shaken army was rebuilt in Moesia for the counterattack of 251. Aurelius Victor wrote that he was killed when he “pressed the attack too boldly”; his father refused consolation, declaring the loss of a single life a small matter beside the battle, and fought on to his own death. The survivors elected Trebonianus Gallus, who kept Herennius’s mother Herennia Etruscilla as Augusta to shore up popular support.

Parents

Decius Traianus (201 – 251)
Herennia Etruscilla (209 – 253)

Siblings

Hostilian Quintus (230 – 251)